Red Is Not the Only Color

The first English-language anthology of its kind, Red Is Not the Only Color offers a window into the uncharted terrain of intimate relations between Chinese women. As urban China has undergone rapid transformation, same-sex relations have emerged as a significant, if previously neglected, touchstone for the exploration of the meaning of social change. The short fiction in this volume highlights tensions between tradition and modernization, family and state, art and commerce, love and sex. These stories introduce an emerging generation of acclaimed, and at times controversial, women writers, including Chen Ran, Bikwan Wong, and Chen Xue. By presenting fiction from the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the collection deliberately maps the literary contours of same-sex intimacy in broadly cultural rather than purely political terms. The perceptive and informative introduction surveys the social evolution of female same-sex intimacy in twentieth-century China, examines how each author engages with her Chinese context, and discusses how the stories compare with earlier representations of Chinese same-sex intimacy in the United States. Compelling for its literary quality, the anthology will also spur reflection among scholars of modern Chinese literature as well as readers interested in questions of gender, sexuality, and cross-cultural representation.
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With so much deserving fiction awaiting translation, an anthology such as this one deserves gratitude.— China Quarterly

This book is a touching co-operative product among the editor and women writers and translators. The stories are well chosen, with a cultural complexity and diversity that is quite remarkable. The stories move by their intellectual depth and emotional maturity, without hiding the historical complexity, cultural blind spots and social limitations and freedom that they come out of.— China Perspectives

This lucidly translated collection opens a window for its readers to get a glimpse of a rarely observed emotional world inhabited by women with a same-sex affective orientation. . . . An important and timely project.— China Review International

Red is Not the Only Color is an astonishing collection of stories that opens up a barely glimpsed world of a range of different kinds of intimacy between Chinese women. Sieber's lucid introduction places these gripping stories in a historical and cultural context that allows us to see how they challenge, in her words, 'both dominant Chinese and Western conceptions of gender, sexuality, and the political.' This anthology expands the boundaries of what we know about same-sex sexuality in a global context.— Leila J. Rupp, editor, Journal of Women's History

Red Is Not the Only Color

The first English-language anthology of its kind, Red Is Not the Only Color offers a window into the uncharted terrain of intimate relations between Chinese women. As urban China has undergone rapid transformation, same-sex relations have emerged as a significant, if previously neglected, touchstone for the exploration of the meaning of social change. The short fiction in this volume highlights tensions between tradition and modernization, family and state, art and commerce, love and sex. These stories introduce an emerging generation of acclaimed, and at times controversial, women writers, including Chen Ran, Bikwan Wong, and Chen Xue. By presenting fiction from the PRC, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, the collection deliberately maps the literary contours of same-sex intimacy in broadly cultural rather than purely political terms. The perceptive and informative introduction surveys the social evolution of female same-sex intimacy in twentieth-century China, examines how each author engages with her Chinese context, and discusses how the stories compare with earlier representations of Chinese same-sex intimacy in the United States. Compelling for its literary quality, the anthology will also spur reflection among scholars of modern Chinese literature as well as readers interested in questions of gender, sexuality, and cross-cultural representation.

With so much deserving fiction awaiting translation, an anthology such as this one deserves gratitude.— China Quarterly

This book is a touching co-operative product among the editor and women writers and translators. The stories are well chosen, with a cultural complexity and diversity that is quite remarkable. The stories move by their intellectual depth and emotional maturity, without hiding the historical complexity, cultural blind spots and social limitations and freedom that they come out of.— China Perspectives

This lucidly translated collection opens a window for its readers to get a glimpse of a rarely observed emotional world inhabited by women with a same-sex affective orientation. . . . An important and timely project.— China Review International

Red is Not the Only Color is an astonishing collection of stories that opens up a barely glimpsed world of a range of different kinds of intimacy between Chinese women. Sieber's lucid introduction places these gripping stories in a historical and cultural context that allows us to see how they challenge, in her words, 'both dominant Chinese and Western conceptions of gender, sexuality, and the political.' This anthology expands the boundaries of what we know about same-sex sexuality in a global context.— Leila J. Rupp, editor, Journal of Women's History